


my war is over

by wintermadethissoldier



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, steve is good in this one i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 13:29:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19006753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintermadethissoldier/pseuds/wintermadethissoldier
Summary: He is the sun you have always revolved around and you were a fool for ever thinking you could be free of this. That you would ever want to be free of this.Bucky doesn't tell Steve that he needs to stop fighting. but even if he needs to, he cannot stop following Steve rogers into war.





	my war is over

**Author's Note:**

> title lyrics from the war by syml
> 
> i wanted to write something with bucky having ptsd attacks and play around with the format of it. i suffer from anxiety/some ptsd as well and wanted to explore how to write that a little more creatively. so the writing does change about 1/3 of the way through from the third to the second person to signal the shift in bucky's mentality — i promise it's purposeful!
> 
> tw for mention of suicidal ideation and ptsd symptoms/attacks.

Bucky doesn’t tell Steve that he needs to stop fighting. At first, there isn’t time between fighting for their lives against half of the Avengers and Bucky going back into cryofreeze. When he wakes up, Steve is focused on lying low and his visits in Wakanda are short and far in between. Their conversations mostly revolve around Bucky’s progress and he knows that Steve cares, but he’s worried he might only care because Steve wants him back by his side. And he wants to, _God_ he wants to protect Steve like he’s been doing since they were kids, covering his six in Brooklyn back alleys and European frontlines and against Avengers and aliens. But he doesn’t know how long he can do that without completely falling prey to his own mind, hell-bent on destroying him from the inside out.

Shuri deprogrammed Hydra’s brainwashing but there was only so much she could do about everything else. He didn’t want to remember what he had done as the Asset, but the mere thought of subjecting himself to memory erasure again sent him into a panic so severe Shuri never brought it up again. So the memories stayed, along with the episodes that he was still trying to get a handle on. No one could trigger him into the Winter Soldier anymore, but he still wouldn’t classify himself as stable. But Steve was so hopeful with those damn baby blues that made Bucky feel like he was falling without a parachute that he couldn’t bring himself to tell him that every time he fought, it made him feel like everything in him was trying to fight its way out of his body. It didn’t matter what he could and couldn’t do, though, because in the end, he always put Steve first. If Steve needed him, there was nothing he could do but follow him; he had saved Bucky from literal hell and done everything in his power to keep him from safe from HYDRA. It went deeper than just needing to repay a debt—loyalty to Steve was part of his DNA, so ingrained into his blood that he couldn’t imagine not picking up his rifle and following him into battle every time. The truth of it was the same as it had been in 1923 and it would be the same until the day he finally ended up six feet under: If anything happened to Steve Rogers, he would lose himself completely.

So he kept his secrets and hid them behind tilted smiles and jostled shoulders, same as he had since before the war. He didn’t let Steve or Sam see him after the adrenaline wore off, his back braced against an overturned car as uncontrollable tremors took over his body. He didn’t have control over his own mind, memories flashing like a film reel, mercilessly through his mind: a child screaming, the stuttering heartbeat of Maria Stark, a splash of red across sheets, ice water needling into his naked skin, the unrelenting pain of the chair. But he doesn’t tell anyone, because James Buchanan Barnes nor the Winter Soldier ever backed down from a fight.

 

* * *

 

Cryofreeze was almost a gift, as much as his heart hammered uncontrollably in his chest before he went under. It took all that was in him to reign in that animal urge to flee, looking away so Steve wouldn’t see the wild, panicked look in his eyes and the heaving of his chest. But cryo wasn’t too bad after it started, the blackness and timelessness that meant a kind of rest. This meant healing rather than waiting this time around, Wakanda behind the glass instead of Hydra.

He dreamt of Steve, or at least he wants to believe he was dreaming of him during those few months. It was always about the two of them before the war, the feel of his skin on Steve’s as he set his nose back into place after he had gotten it broken again. Back when his hands were used for loving, for honest work, for protecting Steve. Back when he had two hands. He knew somewhere in his muddled mind that it wasn’t easy then either, listening to the death rattle of Steve’s chest on the worst nights and working until he ran himself ragged to keep the heat on through the winters. But there wasn’t any serum, Bucky hadn’t killed anything but cockroaches, and Steve never asked him to go where he couldn’t follow.

When he woke up, it felt like fresh air to broken lungs—a little painful, but at least he was breathing. He liked Wakanda, even let himself briefly believe that he was safe there. Shuri gave him everything he needed, set him up for a quiet life in what felt like the edge of the world, and the gentle ebb and flow of daily village life started calming his mind for the first time in 80 years. He formed his first tentative relationships apart from Steve and his teammates, re-learned his own body, discovered a love for taking care of something other than just himself. Neither Shuri nor T’Challa had questioned him when he said he didn’t want another arm built, far more inclined to relearn how to live with one arm rather than to have a constant reminder of what he had become. Steve, Nat, and Sam visited when they could, but largely Bucky was largely left to his own devices to disentangle his trauma. But like all good things in his life, it was never destined to last for very long.

He knew it was only a matter of time before Steve would ask him to follow him back into battle. That was an inevitability, had been their whole lives. And Bucky wouldn’t have asked for anything else in this forsaken world than to stay by Steve’s side but _God_ why did it have to be like this. He knew that Steve had been fighting for far fewer decades than he had and for far better causes; nevertheless, Bucky just wanted to put down the gun and carve a life out for both of them that didn’t depend on violence. But he knew that he was made to be a weapon, knew that whoever he was before the Winter Soldier had been burned out of him long ago to make way for survival and brute force. The only difference now was that he was in control of the weapon, and at least he could live out the rest of his miserable life turning himself on Steve’s enemies.

He should have known Steve asked T’Challa to make him a new arm, just in case something like this came around. It’s vibranium and blessedly devoid of the brutalist silver shine and red star that still haunted his nightmares, but it is still weapon first, prosthetic second.

He feels like screaming and crawling out of his own skin.

He instead thanks T’Challa and follows Shuri in silence to get it attached.

He takes the elastic out of his hair, wraps himself in Kevlar.

 _Breathe in. Out._ The Winter Soldier does not panic. Put on a brave face now—he’s coming at you with that 1000-watt smile that could melt the icecaps. He needs you. You cannot let him down now.

It is almost worth it, his arms around you and the tilted smile he gives you that makes your heart sink straight to the core of the earth. It’s almost worth what comes after this, what tears you apart nerve by goddamn nerve until you are barely a person anymore. But you have scraped him off of alleyways and he has pulled you from electric nodes and chairs with too many straps and this is how it always has been, how it always will be. Smile now, he’s looking at you with expectancy in his eyes. He wants to know you’re okay, that you can do this.

_goddammit why does he even need you he has superpowered friends that can call lightning down from the sky and shoot fucking lasers from their hands and all you can do is choke the life from innocents–_

Breathe. _In. Out._ Just like what you told him before you touched his face with a rag dipped in iodine, trying to clean the scrapes on his cheek. He winced, but he was strong. He’s always been so strong. Good, that’s it. In. Out. Follow him onto the battlefield as he drips confidence with every step and commands attention of the whole earth; he is the sun you have always revolved around and you were a fool for ever thinking you could be free of this. That you would ever want to be free of this.

You watch as the place you have tentatively chosen to call home is destroyed around you, yet again. You know you are a fool for thinking anything good would last, but it still stings. You only have a moment to dwell before the instincts that were burned and electrocuted and iced into you take over. Lift, squeeze, slash. Make sure he is safe. He trusts you not to fuck this up, to keep it together, to have his back. You can do that for as long as it takes, as long as you keep moving; it’s when there’s nothing left to shoot, to punch, when things get bad. Maybe you’ll just keep fighting forever, chasing after every single person in his way so that you can both finally rest. Perhaps he can do this all day, but you can’t, not anymore. You know that you do not deserve to rest, not after all of the pain and chaos you have caused in the world but that doesn’t mean you cannot want it with every fibre of your being.

And you don’t even have to think about trying to hide yourself after it’s all done and over with because you feel yourself fading at the edges. You say his name because it’s the only thing you can think of, needing him to look at you and make you real again because you feel like you’re disintegrating in a way that’s wholly different than how you usually fall apart. But even his gentle eyes can’t ground you to reality and before you can panic about what’s happening to you, there’s only silence.

 

* * *

 

If this is the afterlife, then you suppose it can’t be too bad. It’s quiet, after all, and dark in a way that’s soothing rather than oppressive. Finally, rest. You know you should be freaking out right now, can feel something screaming _STEVE GET BACK TO HIM WHAT HAPPENED_ trying to claw its way into what is left of your consciousness, but it’s distant, detached. There is little that exists outside of this—time, space, feelings, coherent thoughts. You might have been here a thousand years, or perhaps just a few minutes.

But then you’re back, spitting leaves out of your mouth as you lie facedown on the earth. Someone is calling your name, trying to pick you up off the ground but all you can mumble is, “Steve?”, an aborted sound five years too late. And you feel the anxiety come back around you, threatening to swallow you whole, but someone is hauling you to your feet and telling you that you need to go, that the rest of the Avengers needs you. That Steve needs you. So you swallow the memories, pick up your rifle, slip back into a weapon because at least someone will find a use for you that way.

Nothing makes any goddamn sense but there’s no time to talk, no time to think before you’re stepping out into what used to be upstate New York, burning and shrouded in smoke. Back to laser-focus, letting the kickback of your gun against your shoulder ground you. He’s out there, encased in lightning that’s somehow entirely his own, but his shield is cracked and jagged and it sends fear so acute through you that you almost miss a shot.

Almost.

He turns those damn eyes on you and smiles so sweet, so obviously full of relief that you feel like your teeth might rot out of your skull. And he’s an absolute idiot for letting his guard down for even a second but he’s alive and okay and that’s going to have to be enough for you as you wrap your metal fingers around the throat of an alien and feel the pulse stutter and die beneath the synthetic nerves. You feel nothing. You feel everything.

You’re almost positive you don’t believe in God anymore, not after everything you’ve been through, but you still send up a word of thanks to whoever’s listening that Steve is occupied with Tony rather than you. Your vision is swimming, a vignette of black stars seeping into your sight lines as you stumble behind a pile of rubble. Press your back against the metal, sink to the ground and try to breathe. _In. Out. In–_

Screaming. Yours, a young woman’s, a crowd’s. You try to push your fingers into the dirt, one last futile attempt to ground yourself; your hand, your real hand, is shaking too much. If you could see anything but dizzying blackness with your eyes wide open, you know you would see your left hand completely, unnervingly still. You can hear the whir of the thing, recalibrating again and again in response to danger that isn’t there. You can’t breathe. You can’t breathe you can’t breathe _you can’t breathe_ –

A gasp, more tortured wheezing than a breath. That only comes with the smell of clotted blood and you are on your knees, retching again and again to rid yourself of your own self. You are nothing but a wild, panicked animal trapped in a corner, eyes unseeing and limbs unfeeling. 70 years of faces whisper in your mind, tearing the rest of your semblance of sanity to shreds. You are dimly aware of your hands tangled in your own hair, trying to pull the memories out by brute force. There may be no one holding the trigger to your gun anymore, but you are not in control of yourself all the same; the Winter Soldier may not have felt a thing but James Buchanan Barnes is a live wire that feels the past 78 years acutely again and again and again.

You are not a dying star or the other dozens of poetic metaphors—you are ugly and raw and broken open in the most horrifyingly vulnerable way and you would rather put a bullet in your own skull before you exposed yourself like this to anyone. There is no fucking poetry to torture and trauma. Your vision whites, all you can feel is pain and panic and someone calling your name—

_you weren’t allowed to have a name you have no name you are nothing more than an asset_

But then you feel something touch your arm and you nearly knock yourself unconscious against brick and twisted metal, scrambling back and ears ringing. You can’t tell who’s screaming. It could be you.

_or the fucking hundreds of innocent people you killed in cold blood you murderer_

But the voice swims up to you again through the sea of screaming and ringing and sensory overload. It’s questioning, insistent, familiar in a way that only the deepest part of your brain understands. But there’s nothing you can do but ride out the panic and the pain; you lost the ability to fight through it a long time ago.

But eventually, it does start to fade. Enough that the blackness slowly starts to recede, painting a hazy landscape that’s still covered in ash and rubble. It’s all sideways now and you can feel rocks digging into the side of your face; the trembling doesn’t leave, but at least you have enough control now to lift yourself up, put the world right-side up again. The battlefield is quiet, the empty space of thousands turned to dust in a second just like you had been only–

 _Breathe. In. Out._ This is no place to relapse. You need a room, darkness, maybe a bottle of scotch to wash this all down with. But before you can get much further than trying to slow your heaving chest you hear it again, your name, wrenched from lips like it hurts to say. “Bucky?”

Everything in him wants to snap back to normal, to act like he’s been here the entire time just catching his breath and checking on the injured rather than turning into a fucking puddle. And even though he knows exactly what he’ll see when he looks up, he does it anyway, forcing a crooked smile onto his face. “Stevie, I’m back.” He croaks, wincing inwardly at how he sounds. The look on Steve’s face breaks his heart all over again and _dammit_ he wishes Steve hadn’t taken off his helmet so he wouldn’t be able to see the concern written all over his face. The way he wears his heart for everyone to see makes Bucky want to punch him, shake him by the shoulders, throw him onto the mattress—dumb fucking idiot _anyone_ can see you.

For once, Steve is lost for words, crouched in front of him with his shield and hammer long forgotten in the rubble behind him. “Buck–” He starts, reaching towards him before stopping, his hand hovering between them. “Where are you hurt?” And Bucky has to bite back a cruel laugh because he _wishes_ this something a cast and the serum could take care of. Getting shot hurts like a bitch—he would know more than most—but he’d take that a million times over the nightmares and the episodes. He presses his metal hand on top of his flesh one, trying to physically stop it from shaking. “‘m fine, punk. You learned some new tricks when I was gone.” And he knows he’s being stupid, trying to pretend like nothing’s fine, but it’s hard to think around the brain fog and Steve’s dumb big eyes staring at him like he’s the only thing in the world.

Steve makes a little pained noise in the back of his throat, leaning over to check for any obvious wounds. “ _Shit Bucky,_ what’s wrong?” He’s growing frantic now, probably thinking of the billion scenarios in which he could lose him again. And that thought alone brings Bucky back infinitesimally back to himself, enough to shake his head and try to sit up straighter. “Stop your mother henning, I didn’t get hit.” He takes a deep breath around the slowly-receding panic, tries to remind himself that this is _Steve_ and he doesn’t need to put up walls and shut him out. But that’s what he’s been doing for years, reassuring Steve that he’s fine and giving him the impression that he’ll follow him anywhere, everywhere, for anything.

“I can’t– after, I…” He mentally kicks himself, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. “It all comes back.” And despite decades of Steve seeing him at his most vulnerable and his absolute worst, he still wants to hide from this. He doesn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes when Bucky can no longer be who he needs him to be, can’t take that without crumbling even further. So he keeps them shut, trying to focus instead on steadying his breathing and regaining some sense of dignity.

It’s a mercy, at least, that Steve doesn’t press further. He knows that he must wake up in cold sweats from nightmares too, though they’ve never talked about it. There’s only the shift of rocks and armor as he shifts closer, resting a tentative hand on his knee. Bucky hates how much he relaxes into it. Steve isn’t a magician, he isn’t going to fix his PTSD and memory problems and the million other things that are fucked up in his head just because he’s Steve Rogers and that’s all Bucky has cared about his whole life. But that doesn’t mean that his breath comes steadier when Steve’s this close, ironic considering how most of his sorry life he’s found it hard to keep his heart from hammering out of his chest around him.

They’re both quiet for several minutes, Bucky not wanting to say another word about it and Steve not pushing him. But then, quietly, in a broken voice that guts Bucky all over again, “Why didn’t you tell me?”. It isn’t anger or betrayal like the irrational side of his mind was expecting, just worry and hurt. He can’t decide which is better.

“I said til the end of the line, didn’t I? Somebody’s gotta watch your ass out there.” He opens his eyes finally, sighing shakily as he looks at Steve. It’s not the answer he wants, Bucky knows, but he can’t offer him much more than that right now. “C’mon, Stevie, don’t look at me like that.” He means for it to come out light, but it sounds more like he’s about to cry. “I’m not gonna go all Winter Soldier on anyone. Just...need time after.” As though Steve would ever let him near a gun again after this. Hell, he might stick him back in Shuri’s lab and tell her to fix him, but better this time.

Steve looks like he’s about to argue with him and at least some things never change. But he changes his mind, stays quiet for a few moments before opening his mouth. “Do you remember what you told me after Azzano? When I asked you if you’d follow Captain America?” He asks quietly, staring at a point just past Bucky’s head.

Bucky nods, grateful that the Steve memories in his swiss-cheese brain are at least mostly intact. “And I said that I’d follow the little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight.”

Steve sighs, pulling his focus back onto Bucky. Damn those eyes. “I think that little guy from Brooklyn is done fighting.”

And maybe Bucky did get killed by a Chitauri because the Steve Rogers he knows (and loves) would never back down from a fight. No matter how tired, battered, or how stupid the cause. And he’s about to make a snarky comment and wave it off, but the look in Steve’s eyes stops him short. And Bucky realizes that he lost him for five years, if Strange is to be believed, along with Sam and the half of the Avengers. Half of the world. He looks more exhausted than Bucky’s ever seen him, a bone-deep tiredness that Bucky recognizes reflected in his eyes. And he’s incredibly stupid for not thinking that Steve wanted to carry on like this forever. They’ve spent their lives mirroring each other—Steve following Bucky into war, Steve frozen for 70 years while Bucky was frozen inside of his own mind, both men out of time and perhaps tired of fulfilling their destiny as weapons of destruction. He allows himself the most infinitesimal sparks of hope that maybe this means rest.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I think Sam can take up the mantle. But I…” Steve trails off, looking at the destruction around them. “After this, I think retirement sounds good. Start living the life Peg was always on me about.”

“Picket fence, 2.5 kids, a dog? All that?” He jokes, hiding the pain of knowing what comes next—domestic Steve with a wife and kids and when Bucky loses him for real. At least he could pretend he would never settle down as Captain America, too dedicated to the mantle to do much else, but now? But if it means that Bucky can watch him live a full life, the one he’s always deserved, then he will grin and bear it like he’s done for the past century.

“Not exactly what I had in mind. C’mon.” He braces his hands on his knees, hauling himself up before offering Bucky a hand.

He takes it, his hand steady.


End file.
